Among the ethnological papers read at the meeting of the British Association in 1847 was one “On the Results of the recent Egyptian Researches in reference to Asiatic and African Ethnology, and the Classification of Languages,” in which Baron Bunsen sought to show that the whole of mankind could be classified according to language. In fact, it was taken for granted in 1847 that the study of comparative philology would be in future the only safe foundation for the study of anthropology.[122] The spread of this fallacy is usually attributed to Max Müller, whose charm of style and high reputation as a Sanskrit scholar did much to popularise the new science of philology. He invented the term “Aryan,” which in itself contains two erroneous assumptions—one linguistic, that the Indo-Iranian group of languages is older than its relatives; and the other geographical, that its “cradle” was in ancient Ariana, in Central Asia. Moreover, in his lectures he not only spoke of an Aryan language, but of an “Aryan race.” He is credited with having made “heroic reparation” for these errors when he wrote later: “To me an ethnologist who speaks of an Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan eyes and hair, is as great a sinner as a linguist who speaks of a dolichocephalic dictionary or a brachycephalic grammar. It is worse than a Babylonian confusion of tongues—it is downright theft.” But, as he pointed out,[123] he himself never shared the misconception that he was accused of launching on the world. He admits that he was not entirely without blame, as he allowed himself occasionally the freedom to speak of the Aryan or the Semitic race, meaning the people who spoke Aryan or Semitic languages; but as early as 1853 he had protested against the intrusion of linguistics into ethnology, and called, if not for a complete divorce, at least for a judicial separation between the study of Philology and the study of Ethnology.... The phonologist should collect his evidence, arrange his classes, divide and combine as if no Blumenbach had ever looked at skulls, as if no Camper had ever measured facial angles, as if no Owen had ever examined the base of a cranium. His evidence is the evidence of language, and nothing else; this he must follow, even though in the teeth of history, physical or political.... There ought to be no compromise between ethnological and phonological science. It is only by stating the glaring contradictions between the two that truth can be elicited.[124] Footnote 122: _Rep. Brit. Assoc._ (Cardiff), 1891, p. 787. Footnote 123: _Rep. Brit. Assoc._ (Cardiff), 1891, p. 787. Footnote 124: _Rep. Brit. Assoc._ (Cardiff), 1891, p. 787. The protest was in vain. The belief in an “Aryan race” became an accepted fact both in linguistics and in ethnology, and its influence vitiates the work of many anthropologists even at the present day.